It’s hard to shed a tear as Britain formally triggers the doleful negotiations to exclude itself from the mainstream of European politics and economics.

In this post I am interested in exploring the Hidden aspects of ‘Brexit’ and the Hidden Costs of the FORTHCOMING negotiations.

Article 50 is a one-way street, once it is invoked there is no procedural route for going back and, if an agreement is not reached and an extension of time not given, then the United Kingdom will exit the European Union two years from the date of notification of intention to exit

Even an amicable deal risks major legal hurdles. Any exit deal struck outside Article 50 would risk legal challenge before the EU courts. What is more, any treaty changes would trigger a referendum in other EU countries, which could either stop the process dead and/or infuriate those on the other side of the table.

The UK has a long history in which it abused its relative power over other populations.

So as we now watch the inevitable turmoil which will follow UK withdrawal from the EU it would be wise to remember that according to constitutional practice in the United Kingdom, Parliament has no formal role in treaty-making, as the power to do so is vested in the executive, acting on behalf of the Crown.

However Treaties with direct financial implications require the assent of Parliament because they affect revenue.

( The most common type are bilateral agreements to avoid double taxation. The texts are laid in the form of draft Orders in Council and are occasionally debated.

 Many treaties require a change to domestic legislation which will be subject to the usual parliamentary procedures.

 Treaties which stipulate Parliamentary approval – where an agreement is of a political nature and is known to be controversial, one or both of the governments involved may wish to safeguard its position by writing an express requirement for parliamentary approval into the text.

 Treaties which require ratification are subject to the Ponsonby procedure (see below)

 Other treaties and international agreements may be subject to some degree of parliamentary scrutiny if a Member raises the issue through a Parliamentary Question or early Day Motion, for example.

The UK has over 14,000 treaties.

The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (in force since 1980) defines a treaty as: ‘an international agreement concluded between States in written form and governed by international law, whether embodied in a single instrument or in two or more related instruments and whatever its particular designation’ Only a minority of such agreements have “treaty” in their title. Other common names include “convention”, “protocol” and “agreement”.

As we all know looking back on history treaties are not worth the paper they are written on. For example : The Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding document, was meant to be a partnership between Māori and the British Crown. Although it was intended to create unity, different understandings of the treaty, and breaches of it, are still causing conflict.

or

Hitler’s had said in (1924) that he would abolish the Treaty of Versailles. It can be argued that it was not just Hitler who broke the Treaty of Versailles, but also Britain and France, when they allowed him to do what he did.

Britain has not been as insular an island as some people take it to be.

Separated by just 20 miles (33 kilometers) of water at the Strait of Dover its reigning royal family (which is German) to its exports (overwhelmingly to Europe), have both shaped and been shaped by developments in the rest of Western Europe.

England joined the European Union through the Royal Prerogative, and will negotiate and leave the European Union through the same.

So what is the Royal Prerogative ?

The royal prerogative has been called “a notoriously difficult concept to define adequately”,

The prerogative appears to be historically and as a matter of fact nothing else than the residue of discretionary or arbitrary authority which at any given time is legally left in the hands of the crown. The prerogative is the name of the remaining portion of the Crown’s original authority … Every act which the executive government can lawfully do without the authority of an Act of Parliament is done in virtue of the prerogative.

or

By the word prerogative we usually understand that special pre-eminence which the King hath, over and above all other persons, and out of the ordinary course of common law, in right of his regal dignity … it can only be applied to those rights and capacities which the King enjoys alone, in contradiction to others, and not to those which he enjoys in common with any of his subjects.

Hopeful and aspirational international declarations of human rights have led progressively towards the adoption and implementation of more robust and justiciable instruments for the protection of fundamental rights in the domestic sphere.

UK (a day after invoking Article 50, setting Brexit negotiations in motion), is now proposing to using powers dating back to Henry VIII. to convert European laws into domestic legislation without any parliamentary scrutiny.

The fact that the UK unwritten magna carta constitution allowed these sorts of powers to survive is “a wondrous thing” as he was all about essentially dictatorial powers.

The scope, and the definition of these powers and when they can be used, in what circumstances, is a black hole of the future of the UK and can only be viewed as a power grab by Mother Theresa.

This is not only undemocratic, but may well lead to the loss of individual rights.

In the current climate, it is perhaps more than the ghost of Henry VIII that will haunt them.

EU law still applies in the U.K pending an exit.

“A bill that limits the powers of the European Court of Justice is a plain contradiction of EU treaty obligations.”

The right to complain to, or seek a decision from, EU institutions will be beheaded by Brexit.

The EU’s court system could be similarly cut off by Brexit, relying on the domestic judicial system and common law and ECHR rights.

The U.K. courts would face a constitutional crisis. Judges would have, on the one hand, the 1972 Act telling them to apply EU law and, on the other, legislation restricting it.

A fundamental tenet of EU treaty law is that it trumps all national law.

There will be a “constitutional conflict [that] would antagonize and politicize the judiciary on both sides.

Governments of Scotland and Wales and NI could also raise constitutional concerns.

“It is hard to imagine that unilateral action to stop applying EU law, while still under a treaty obligation to so, will create a lot of goodwill in subsequent negotiations.”

EU citizens could sue the U.K. government for compensation if they suffer damages as a result of conduct contrary to EU law.

All of this points to the need for absolute transparence in the forthcoming negotiations.

This is not a war in the true sense of endangering lives, but as Brexit becomes more of a reality, the UK’s financial services sector will be the foot soldiers in a financial war over costs, tariffs, stock exchanges, and the European bond marketplace.

Money wars always turn ugly quickly.

It could easily sour the rest of the Brexit talks process, and the “new relationship” process to follow. You can see how the politics of this could get toxic quite quickly.

Britain’s exit bill is a potential slaughterhouse for the idea of a smooth and orderly negotiated settlement.

Britain as a full member state has agreed to current EU budget, so the European Commission expects it to honour its commitments and pay up its share – somewhere in the region of €29 – €36 billion.

Getting a deal done is a political tight-rope walk, with one major sensitivity being the issue of where the combined Agencies will be based.

The European Medicines Agency, which, like the Food and Drug Administration, oversees the approval of drugs for use across Europe, is a European Union agency, so it will almost certainly have to leave Britain. Drug companies might require two authorizations for new products — one British, one European — pushing up the prices of medicine.

The European Banking Authority will also have to re locate.

Brexit will jeopardize the creation of a single European capital market.

THEN WE HAVE 45, European Union agencies, or similar bodies, and they are considered trophies for member countries because they bring both prestige and economic benefits – WITH THEIR PENSIONS.

The pensions of EU civil servants are not paid from an invested pension fund – they are paid on a pay-as-you-go basis from each year’s EU budget. The pension liability is about €67 billion. Who wants to get stuck for a pension bill for Eurocrats (average retirement benefit €67,149 a year)

The British will argue that their obligation stops the day they leave the EU, or might continue with pension payments for the British staff of the Commission (about 4% of staff) – this would cost about €80m this year.

And there is a whole stack of off-balance sheet items.

It will add tens of millions to Ireland’s annual legal costs and severely limit the government’s ability to protect the country’s interests in EU legislation.

Michel Barnier’s EU negotiating team will argue they have an ongoing commitment to pay, because they gave a commitment as a member state to cover the retirement cost of all staff hired, and must pay the UK share of that cost – between 12 and 15% – giving a cost this year of around €120m. But the pension funding commitment won’t peak until 2049, when it will hit €218m for the UK share.

There are also a stack of other liabilities – such as the €16 billion Juncker fund for economic stimulus, or the €3 billion Galileo satellite navigation system, €10 billion for the Connecting Europe fund. And there are contingent liabilities and guarantees on loans made to the European Investment bank (€23 billion), and the various EU bailout schemes, which amount to €56 billion. The UK has a share of some of the guarantees that allow this money to be borrowed at low rates (adding its heft to the ratings agencies’ AAA rating for EU debt).

But just as the EU has liabilities, it also has assets on its balance sheet, and the UK would be due a share of these to offset the exit bill. These include €8.6 billion of property, plant and equipment – including the Commission’s Berlaymont Building in Brussels, and the Galileo satellites – and €13.9 billion of assets available for sale.

The UK is also due a share of EU spending over the next few years, so about €9 billion is netted off the final figure for that. And there is some of Mrs Thatcher’s famous budget rebate due to the UK as well. So that has to come off to arrive at a net figure for the British bill.

A key point of contention is what is the British share of the EU budget – is it calculated from Gross National Income (GNI) in which case Britain has to pay up 15% of the overall EU bill. Or is it calculated (as the British would prefer) from an average of actual contributions after the rebate – in which case it is 12.1%.

If the UK share of the bills is set at 12% they would have to pay €57.4 billion. At 15% share, the cost to the UK would be €72.8 billion.

The exit costs will be settled by politics, not law. That’s how pretty much all EU money fights end – by a political compromise. The entire system is set up to produce political compromises.

Yes the EU could simply refuse to budge and run down the two-year Article 50 clock to extract concessions from the British. But the danger is if the talks with Britain collapse completely there is no deal of any sort – on trade as much as the terms of departure – and the EU states are left to fight among themselves over filling a €60 billion budget hole, or cutting aid to the most needy states (who are already enjoying less generous terms than we got when we were net beneficiaries of the EU budget ).

With pressure on both sides to do a deal, how the departure payment issue is dealt with will set the tone for most of the other negotiations over the terms of Brexit.

The effects will be more far-reaching than anyone imagined.

TO GET ALL OF THIS DONE IN TWO YEARS IS FARCICAL. HOWEVER YOU CAN REST ASSURED IF ANY OF IT IS DONE BY BACK DOOR DEALS WE WILL NOT BE SAYING GOODBYE TO ENGLAND BUT TO THE EU.

( A five-minute follow on read: Broadening the Subject of Brexit to a Global view)

Because we never see or experience time and space; they are like glasses through which we view the world. Each day, we hear about countless instances of greed, hatred, violence, and destruction, and all of the pain, suffering, and sorrow that ensues.

About 100 years ago, the world sleepwalked into World War 1, which lead to world War 11.

Technology increasingly prevents us from seeing ourselves in others – we increasingly see others as data, which tell us all about their employment outcomes or what degrees they have, but which keeps their dignity out of plain sight.

How is it that technology has and still is superseding human intelligence, when it’s the humans that are discovering new technologies?

The question is how to change human being, since we are the root cause of everything.

The earth is on the brink of environmental disaster because human beings (at least those in power during the modern age) have drawn sharp distinctions between the human and non-human world.

The world is and has always been divided into two opposing camps: female/male; non-white/white; haves/have-nots; young/old; conflict theorists/functionalists; developed nations/less developed nations; oppressed/oppressors; industrialized/non-industrialized; Western/non-Western, etc.

They all stem from a mindset that envisions a world of you versus me, us versus them, self versus other.

We can look at almost any social problem—racism, sexism, poverty, homophobia, ableism, bullying, terrorism, domestic violence, human trafficking, slavery, religious fundamentalism, immigration —and at the core, is a dualistic orientation.

A dualistic orientation is one that focuses on our differences instead of our similarities, promotes arbitrary divisions at the expense of social cohesion, neglects our interdependence by nurturing our sense of independence, and fashions a deeply polarized world where if you are not with us (or like us) then you are against us (and therefore, we are against you).

The world is certainly a mess of socially created divisions. And while these differences seem real, and have very real effects, we must not forget that they are indeed social creations.

When we speak about problems between women and men, people of color and whites, Christians and Muslims, or any of the other numerous dualisms that we regularly invoke, we are implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) suggesting that these two groups are essentially and inherently distinct, that at the core of these two groups is some fundamental difference.

Although the ubiquity of these problems makes them seem so normal and ordinary that we may not even question.

We need to question and challenge the way we unreflectively describe and divide the world into dichotomous and opposing camps.

In both our words and our actions we need to construct real alternatives to these arbitrary constructions, emphasize our similarities instead of our differences, build bridges instead of borders, and recognize that interdependence sustains us while independence tears us apart.

It may seem fruitless to try to identify a single contributing factor to all of society’s collective dilemmas. Ultimately, the challenge is to see others as us.

We first need to recognize ourselves in others before we can treat them like we would want to be treated.

Treating everyone equal, but in a real scenario, this is not possible.

Leave apart treating humans equal, we do not even spare the nature that lets us live or wildlife that maintains the ecological balance.

We destroy them all if it is serving our purpose.

We need to end the era of easy money. We need to stop subsidizing financial markets. We need to let our economy reorient itself from its short-term and transactional focus back to one based on long-term investment and long-term relationships.

We must encourage not discourage immigration. Immigration is morally correct, is good foreign policy and is economically beneficial. Immigrants must be viewed as assets, which they are, not liabilities.

Populists continue to come to power but it has no long term objectives.

The rich stay rich, the powerful stay powerful and the poor stay poor. Trade suffers, immigrants are shunned. Economic growth is weak. Capitalism continues to be viewed as the problem, big government as the solution. Maybe another financial crises that we can inflate our way out of. Maybe another financial crises that we can’t.

Sooner or later the music stops. It’s time for us to be better.

We are nowhere near as free as everyone thinks, and that makes my skin crawl.

All in all, of course there is a lot of good in this world, but even with all that good, the bad shines, so bright and with that brightness it sometimes gets hard to see the good.

Why settle other planets when ours is in danger of an impending doom?

It’s easy to assume that we’ll charge into our new home disregarding the existing ecosystem or any potential inhabitants. We’ll change shit around so it works for us and in doing so we’ll make the same mistakes we’ve made for centuries on Earth.

What the hell is going on in the world?

IT’S TIME WE PUT ON

IT’S TIME TO REVANT THE UNITED NATIONS. TO ESTABLISH A NEW WORLD ORGANISATION TO VET ALL TECHNOLOGY, ARTIFICIAL NOR NOT TO ENSURE IT COMPLIES WITH CORE HUMAN VALUES AND NOT PROFIT.

IT’S TIME TO GET OFF YOUR SMART PHONES AND PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR REAL WORLD.

To morrow is yet another day in the history of England and there are many of them that it can be proud of.

However I am sure that there will be many a brave world war two soldier moaning in their Normandy grave, not forgetting the 22 million Russians and 4 hundred thousand Americans, a mere 48,231,700 approx in total.

Peace and freedom in Europe is what they sacrificed their young lives for.

Theresa May may well represent THE 3.8% majority of I am all right Jack that voted to leave and of course we are all entitled to think what we want about the EU as an Institution that is just 60 years in the making.

Of course during the next two years we will be treated every day 7/7 with the spectacle of both sides washing their dirty linen on Social Media and the altar of economics.

We will be told the UK is not leaving Europe but reestablishing itself as a nation.

Which is true but not united.

O Yes there are lots of problems with The EU and the reality is far from the idea of Peace, as the idea has being kidnapped by a political class that has long-lost touch with the very people THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT but there is little point in listing them all here, because Brexit will no doubt shine a spotlight on all of them.

Will Brexit make any difference, I doubt it will.

You could be cynical and say that Wars other than in Europe happen anyway, but without some Unity there will never be peace in the world.

We can only build a future with common core values, not with Artificial Intelligence, not with globalisation, not with capitalist greed, not with arms sales, not with inequality of opportunity, not with trade barriers, not with segregation, not with religion, not with corruption, not with un elected government officials, not with loans, not with austerity, not with growth at all costs, not with the loss of identity, not with people sleeping rough, not with unfair taxes, not with no dignity in death and illness, not with past history or 48,231,700 and certainly not with an Island full of I am alright Jacks.

WE ALL KNOW THIS:

My advice would have been to stay and fight, even with all that is and will be wrong with the EU in the future.

The question now is: Who is really taking control.

Germany will “win the peace” in Europe as a result of Brexit.

England will see a power grab.

“Henry VIII clause” giving ministers sweeping powers to decide what to keep, without normal parliamentary scrutiny – named after a 1539 Act handing the king power to legislate by proclamation.

The devil will be in the detail

EU’s enormous untapped potential. It marks a new stage in the Europe’s evolution – a denial of understatement in favor of inspiration and engagement.

It took billions of years to go from the first tiny DNA replicators to Homo Sapiens.

It hit you pretty quickly that what’s happening in the world of AI is not just an important topic, but by far THE most important topic for our future.

Our long-term evolutionary success is still to be determined.

When you ask the question is our human intelligence in any way the current peak of evolutionary progress. You also have to ask what is the nature of evolution?

It can not is no longer be that the process of evolution’s only “goal” seems to be self-propagation.

Why?

Because: Technologies already exist which allow genomic selection of embryos during in vitro fertilization—an embryo’s DNA can be sequenced from a single extracted cell. Recent advances such as CRISPR allow highly targeted editing of genomes, and will eventually find their uses in human reproduction.

Because: Artificial Intelligence and Technology like Deep Learning are changing the way we are looking at evolution. It’s no longer a process with a definite goal or even an endpoint.

Because: We may already be running into the genetic limits of intelligence.

The potential for improved human intelligence is enormous. Smarter people and smarter machines—will inevitably intersect.

Naively, one would expect the rate of advance of machine intelligence to outstrip that of biological intelligence. Tinkering with a machine seems easier than modifying a living species, one generation at a time. But advances in genomics—both in our ability to relate complex traits to the underlying genetic codes, and the ability to make direct edits to genomes—will allow rapid advances in biologically-based cognition.

So will AI or genetic modification have the greater impact in the year 2050?

The answer is both.

The feedback loop between algorithms and genomes will result in a rich and complex world, with myriad types of intelligences at play: the ordinary human (rapidly losing the ability to comprehend what is going on around them); the enhanced human (the driver of change over the next 100 years, but perhaps eventually surpassed); and all around them vast machine intellects, some alien (evolved completely in silico) and some strangely familiar (hybrids).

Rather than the standard science-fiction scenario of relatively unchanged, familiar humans interacting with ever-improving computer minds, means we will experience a future with a diversity of both human and machine intelligences.

For the first time, sentient beings of many different types will interact collaboratively to create ever greater advances, both through standard forms of communication and through new technologies allowing brain interfaces.

We may even see human minds uploaded into cyberspace, with further hybridization to follow in the purely virtual realm. These uploaded minds could combine with artificial algorithms and structures to produce an unknowable but humanlike consciousness.

It may seem incredible, or even disturbing, to predict that ordinary humans will lose touch with the most consequential developments on planet Earth, developments that determine the ultimate fate of our civilization and species.

Or will it be that we will augment or brains with AI.

Today, no more than a fraction of a percent of the population has a good understanding of quantum physics, although it underlies many of our most important technologies:

Some have estimated that 10-30 percent of modern gross domestic product is based on quantum mechanics. In the same way, ordinary humans of the future will come to accept machine intelligence as everyday technological magic, like the flat screen TV or smart phone, but with no deeper understanding of how it is possible.

AI will be a disaster for humanity…there is no doubt about it...unless (and this is a small hope) that humans start to treat each other with love and dignity, and that would take a (potentially biological) change in human nature itself which only highly controversial genetic engineering might muster.

Our ability to destroy anything we want to destroy will have to be removed.

It might be nice to fantasize about a star trek scenario, but in reality if we are even 1% as selfish and violent as we are now, and have even 1% of that kind of technology, we would annihilate our self in a matter of days.

Intelligence is synonymous with exploitation, and at every turn where more control is exerted on our world, from primitive fire and harnessing chemistry (bombs and munitions) (<.000001% of mass-energy), to nuclear (0.1%) of turning mass into energy, we get closer and closer to our annihilation the more control we have over our world.

Our intelligence has survived this long partly because we are a necessarily a bit stupid and limited as well. Once AI bridges that deficiency, we will short-circuit and end without taking drastic measures for peace.

If all were simultaneously improved, it would be possible to achieve, very roughly, about 100 standard deviations of improvement, corresponding to an IQ of over 1,000. We can’t imagine what capabilities this level of intelligence represents, but we can be sure it is far beyond our own. Cognitive engineering, via direct edits to embryonic human DNA, will eventually produce individuals who are well beyond all historical figures in cognitive ability.

By 2050, this process will likely have begun.

How and who will determine which kinds of intelligence are “most important” for both machines and humans? Will it be “free” market forces? Government panels? Or what?

What we do know is that humans’ utter dominance on this Earth suggests a clear rule:with intelligence comes power. Which means an ASI, when we create it, will be the most powerful being in the history of life on Earth, and all living things, including humans, will be entirely at its whim—and this might happen in the next few decades.

Once real AI takes over, it will share the same motivations (essentially emotions) that we install in this first oppressive wave of AI, and then I doubt we will be going along with it anywhere.

At the moment we all have a plaza attitude to technology and AI.

We seem to think that once machines reach human levels of intelligence, our ability to tinker starts to be limited by ethical considerations. This is totally foolish as by the time it has surpassed human performance (It has already done so on a number of narrowly defined tasks, such as image or character recognition.) it will be well beyond any ethical considerations.

Rebooting an operating system is one thing, but what about a sentient being with memories and a sense of free will? Eugenics will be all the rage.

Thanks to recent advances, we can predict a phase transition in the behavior of these learning algorithms, representing a sudden increase in their effectiveness.

It is expected that this transition will happen within about a decade, when we reach a critical threshold of about 1 million human genomes worth of data.

While silicon-based technologies are increasingly capable of simulating a mammalian or even human brain, we have little idea of how to find the tiny subset of all possible programs running on this hardware that would exhibit intelligent behavior. The detailed inner workings of a complex machine intelligence (or of a biological brain) may turn out to be incomprehensible to our human minds—

The first truly smart machines will be used just as dumb machines have been, to oppress many and enrich a few.

Its time to wake up if we all don’t want to end up on the garbage heap of Technology that is given Artificial Intelligence with the sole intention of making profit for Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple, all monopolies jockeying for position.

Intelligence whether it is Artificial in a robot, or a smart phone is multidimensional, and must be vet to ensure it complies with our core values.

WE NEED A NEW TOTALLY TRANSPARENT WORLD ORGANISATION THAT IS SELF FINANCING TO VET ALL TECHNOLOGY BEFORE THEY’RE RELEASED INTO OUR FUTURE EVOLUTION.

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Sticking to the creativity killing industrial models of education and business certainly aren’t going to produce significant breakthrough technologies.

Philip Hammond urged EU countries to “think very carefully about what they want” before hanging Britain out to dry in any post-Brexit settlement.

The fact that even the process for conducting these negotiations is not fully covered by European law his advice although cloaked in threatening rhetoric should be heeded by the EU.

Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) is the only formal structure for the negotiations but offers no more than a broad framework for the negotiations. More detailed guidance will largely depend on legal interpretation and political bargaining, and will only be issued after the UK activates article 50 and begins exit proceedings.

To date I have only heard in vague terms what the UK wants.

It seems to me at the moment that there is no consensus on how the UK should approach negotiations on its relationship with the EU. In particular which parts of its current relationship with the EU the UK seeks to preserve and which it has to either renegotiate or walk away from.

This post asks what from an EU perspective what will the negotiations mean.

The European Council’s main role is to define the general political direction and the priorities of the EU.

Although it has no formal legislative power, it has an influential strategic role and provides a final escalation level for discord among member states at the ministerial level.

For the negotiations on the exit conditions, the formal role of the European Council is limited to the beginning of the negotiation process.

It will then set out the guidelines for the withdrawal agreement, without the UK’s participation, through unanimous agreement.

These guidelines will provide general directions and key conditions for the Union negotiator, the European Commission. They will also define the role of the other institutions, the time path and sequence of the negotiation process.

The European Commission is ultimately responsible for negotiations related to the common foreign and security policy (CFSP). In addition to this, the European Parliament has voted in favour of having the Commission led the negotiations.

Out of all the EU institutions, the role of the Parliament is, in legal terms, the least clearly pronounced. Although it has to sign off, by simple majority, on both the exit proceedings and the any future trade deal, its involvement throughout the negotiations will remain uncertain until the European Council issues its guidelines. Nonetheless, the possibility that the Parliament can block the deal(s) gives it significant power over the negotiation process and the content of the agreement.

The European institutions that are involved in the negotiations each cater to different interests.

The Council represents the Member States, the Parliament the European citizens, and the Commission stands for the EU as a whole. For that reason it is crucial that the European Parliament gets a strong role in the negotiation process. It would be difficult to think of a better way to show the benefits of European citizenship, for the British and for Europeans alike.

In a bid to maximise the benefits of the negotiations for European citizens, national governments and for the EU as a whole it is essential:

That the European Council issues negotiation guidelines that serve the interests of European citizens and Europe as a whole, and not just those of the Member States.

That the Parliament’s role is defined by the recognition of its political input and the citizens that it represents, rather than by its mere power to block an agreement.

That the European Parliament, as the highest democratic body of the European Union, be involved in all steps of the negotiation process. This is to be achieved by: setting up a special committee to formalise interinstitutional contacts between the Brexit negotiators from the Council Task Force, the Commission and the Parliament; and by making the European Parliament’s lead negotiator part of the Union’s negotiating team.

It is quite obvious that there is going to be not just one deal, but probably two or more.

So to date on the European side we have only rumors of a massive exit fees in the billions and little else. ( see previous post)

A pretty core question is whether the UK is prepared to concede even the principle that it has liability for any EU expenditure, beyond the pensions of UK citizen employees of the EU.

My guess is that will not be conceded per se, but that one could imagine some notional payment being made, for purely political presentational reasons, to secure a trade deal. I’m thinking of something like £7bn under some pretext-or-other, plus an annual agreement to participate in this or that research funding programme and some pan-European anti-crime-and-terrorism fund.

It also seems to me that the EU is going to have to re-negotiate some of its own terms of international trade due to a downsizing of its market.

Will the UK be paying the cost of these negotiations.

Unfortunately the English don’t seem to understand that the decision to join the EU was irrevocable.

The people of England listened to a bunch of charlatans promising a “Global Britain”, rubbish; Britain has nothing to sell. Yes, the City of London , due to its peculiar legal status will remain the world center for money laundering and financial manipulation, aside from that what have you got?

You just had to hire the Chinese to build a power station! The apparent prosperity of the last 25 years has been built on a mountain of debt, which means that if BofE is forced to defend the pound by raising interest rates the whole economy will come crashing down.

Expect the GB pound to hit 50cents US within months. And don’t think you have any credit left with the old empire, after the stab in the back of Australia and particularly New Zealand nobody is interested in your BS.

If you had any sense at all you would all ask May to admit that voting to leave was a big mistake and please take us back.

The EU is perfectly within its rights to take into account any repercussions to their union’s stability in the way they approach Brexit. Britain can leave anytime they want – they just can’t expect to receive all the privileges that came with membership.

Britain will find out soon enough that leaving the EU is like the spoiled teenager who runs away from home because their parental units won’t buy them the latest iphone. All of a sudden they are cold, dirty, wet and hungry.

Theresa May has said she intends to trigger this process on 29 March, meaning the UK will be expected to have left by the summer of 2019, depending on the precise timetable agreed during the negotiations.

She wants with a “comprehensive free trade deal” giving the UK “the greatest possible access” to the single market to reach a new customs union deal with the EU without the free movement of people.

No matter what, on both sides there are now massive vested interests under threat and hence they will stop at nothing to protect the machine. Nothing.

By the end of this century we have for all intentive purposes if we keep dumping greenhouse gases into the air we will have destroyed our seas and oceans.

Why?

Because our seas and oceans suck up these gases making their waters deadly to their inhabitants.

The other day in the market I stood at a fish stall looking at dozens of species gleaming pink and grey on mounds of ice.

I thought to myself that this is not a display of the ocean’s bounty it’s a museum.

In twenty years from now it will be very different as most of the clams, oysters, mussels, scallops, will be gone. They use calcium carbonate to make their shells which is dissolved by acidifying water.

The prawns, crabs, lobsters, shrimps, use a polymer called chitin to make their shell so they won’t dissolve as quickly, but dissolve they will like teeth in Coca-Cola.

My eyes moved along the stall to dozen kinds of finned fish many of them already on the European at risk lists because of overfishing: such as monkfish, hake, sardines and tuna. All loved by the Spaniards.

I could not help thinking that they are more at risk from the changing ocean biogeochemistry which is causing large areas of dead zones the emptiest places on the planet where there is little or no oxygen causing vast blooms of algae that thrive on acid as do jelly fish.

You might say that with time the sea living creatures will adapted but this is all happening at a pace to fast for evolution.

Even if they did there will be nothing to eat as Foraminifera the tiniest shelled plankton is having trouble growing , it is the food base of every animal in the sea.

As my brother a fisherman would tell you the answers to all of this is not easy.

But this is not the main purpose of this post.

Its main purpose is a warning to the People of Ireland.

Brexit is going to be a grave threat to Irish Coastal Waters, as you can rest assured that the European Fishing quotas will go out the window in the forthcoming negotiations. Recently on a BBC report they were lamenting that Haddock which replaced Cod was now in short supply leading to the demise of Fish and Chips.

It will be of paramount importance that the Irish Government declares all of its territorial waters a protected area, and that it builds a fleet of protection vessels to oversee it protection.

IT’S TIME FOR THE BROTHER SITE: FISHY TALES TO START A PEOPLE’S CAMPAIGN.

I am soon to be seventy, so I thought, looking at the state of the world I would write you all a short note.

I fully appreciate that like your predecessors you are all very busy with False News, Conflicts, Famines, Economics and the like, so I will try to keep this short and to the point, as it is gloomy reading.

If like me you look honestly at ourselves (no matter what colour, religion, G8, United Nations resolution, or cultural heritage) the world is going wrong.

In the meantime:

Technology to wipe out civilization is getting cheaper by the day, while we turn back the evolution clock by pumping 8 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year wiping out 50,000 species each year in collective denial.

Looking back from the moon human activities on earth do not show up.

By 2030 there will be 50% more of us – 6 million a month.

One- fifth of the present day population live in the ” rich world” consuming 86% of the world’s goods while over half the people on earth are trying to live on 2-5$ a day.

This is not going to change.

The last decade has led us down the path of disillusionment, with democracy been eroded by Artificial intelligence which is on the threshold of destroy the livelihoods of thousands.

September 11 has now been turned into a convenient excuse for any anti-people legislation denying civil liberties worldwide. The Arab Spring is a quad mire > The Palestine Question a dark cul-de-sac > Nato a war machine> The United nations a begging gum shield between the west and the rest> Chine a supermarket> Climate Change a trading commodity> Football a religion> Austerity a goal> Economic growth an aspiration that no one know how to achieve.

Governments everywhere are betraying the mandates that brought them into power.

We left with what if anything can be done to stop the rot.

It’s easy to say, that humanity will have to set aside the deep divisions it has maintained for thousands of years and find a new spirit of co-operation. Stop spending billions on arms and start spending on removing Inequalities of opportunity.

You don’t have to look far to see why we have terrorism. Poverty and lack of education spawns it.

If you have got this far I fully understand that you are not in a position to change the world but with some vision you could support the establishment of a New World Organisation to vet all technology to ensure that it comply to human core values.

This Organisation has to be totally independent of all Political pressure, Capitalist greed, and be self financing by charging a vetting fee.

Without such an Organisation we are looking at a greater disaster than Climate Change, Current conflicts, Brexit, or Donald Trump.

A digital divide world whether it is run by Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Amazon, will result in unattainable aspirations, fueled by social media.

There will be no self correct.

As smart-phones proliferate and more people have access to the internet it will be impossible to ignore the world voters wishes.

I thank you in anticipation of your support. Please feel free to forward this letter.

The Internet and social media have ended the monopoly of information previously enjoyed by authoritarian governments.

In 2017, over half of humanity will be online – one of the biggest societal shifts in history. Citizens expect their governments, political parties and civic groups to keep up.

The amount of data we produce doubles every year revealing how we think and feel. In another ten years there will be sensors measuring everything and the amount of data will double every 12 hours.

Hope disease will be all that is left.

To day 70% of all financial transactions are performed by Algorithms.

News content is more and more automatically generated.

Half of to days jobs are threatened to disappear.

It is beyond a doubt that the world economy and society will change fundamentally.

Smart artificial intelligence is learning to recognize patterns.

Take the wrong decisions now and we are all Fucked.

To day Algorithms know pretty well what we do and what we think and how we feel with the resulting decisions feeling like they were our own.

We are on the threshold of being remotely controlled.

Individual monitoring will lead to citizen score.

And it won’t stop there.

Mark my words:

Persuasive computing is just around the corner. Data – empowered “Wise Kings” with manipulation technologies used by Google Facebook Twitter Amazon Snapshot and the like will be nudging us and our governments without Democracy to do things in their opinions and not ours.

We already have a world where Hope disease is rampant and by the time technology can win elections it will be too late for a vaccine.

Manipulation will be the rage and undesirable side effects can be expected.

Social polarization is only just beginning destroying social cohesion.

Brexit- Donald Trump.

The question is: Why are we and our elected representatives so blind to this come age.

The reason is because it is happening at a pace of digital slavery. Slowly enough that there is little resistance from the population, who are loosing their freedom and fast enough to be unstoppable.

Its time to sit up and pay attention.

The right of individual self-development can only be exercised by those who have control over their lives. A democracy cannot work unless these rights are respected. If constrained, this undermines our society and the power state.

The current collecting and processing of personal data is certainly not compatible with the application data laws.

A single click to confirm that we agree with the contents of a hundred page ” terms of use” agreement is woefully inadequate.

Without transparency, legal responsibility and ethical constraints Algorithms for profit are replacing thinking of all citizens. Computer cluster will control our lives.

This is to be avoided at all costs.

But there is little outcry that decisions by powerful algorithms are undermining the basis of ” Collective intelligence” Big Data, artificial intelligence, cybernetics, and behavioral economics are shaping our society for better or worse.

If we do not put in place a New World Organisation that exams all technology to be fit for purpose, to be compatible with society’s core values we will be living in a digital prison, under a digital dictatorship that sooner than later will cause extensive damage.

An automated society with totalitarian features owned by Google and its Tech buddies.

Collective intelligence requires a high degree of diversity.

The current moment confronts us with a paradox.

The unprecedented advance of technologies that facilitate individual empowerment and the overall lack of advance of democracy worldwide?

Many democracies, both long-established ones and newer ones, are experiencing serious institutional debilities and weak public confidence.

The next decade or two may well produce a different overall picture of global democratic change as technology-enabled patterns of political innovation spread to high-density urban environments, making mayors and local councils the spearhead of broader democratic change.

Moreover, new technologies are empowering individuals in many facets of their lives not directly related to politics, for example by giving the poor access to previously unattainable banking services and helping map the property rights of the poorest communities.

These slow-burn socioeconomic forms of empowerment will likely also have significant larger political effects in the years immediately ahead.

Facebook and Twitter exchanges will not automatically create a democracy or an economy.

Ask yourself why with all the technological development of recent years, which seemed to promise all sorts of economic leaps and bounds, has coincided with economic slow growth and rising inequality, especially in the countries most enjoying this technology.

Button 50 might not be nuclear but it will have collateral damage to revile one.

It is the greatest disaster to befall the European Union in its 59-year history.

Theresa May vows if EU tries to ‘punish’ Britain we will walk away WITHOUT a Brexit deal (Photo: Getty)

The economic consequences for the UK from leaving the EU are complex.

You don’t have to be a genius to recognise THAT to unscramble 40 years of European integration is going to cost sheds loads of loot – euros and sterling.

The total bill kicked around at the moment is estimated to be between €40 billion (£34 billion) and €60 billion (£52 billion).

We all know what happens with estimates.

All 28 member states have to unanimously agree to the terms of a deal meaning the negotiations could take years.

In the meantime Britain is still bound by the obligations and responsibilities of EU membership.

ARE THEY INDEED.

Theoretically, there is nothing to stop a British Government unilaterally withdrawing from the EU by simply repealing the 1972 European Communities Act. Article 50 compels only the EU to seek a negotiation, not the withdrawing member state.

Triggering Article 50, formally notifying the intention to withdraw, starts the clock running. After that, the Treaties that govern membership no longer apply to Britain.

At a glance | What is Article 50?

Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon gives any EU member the right to quit unilaterally, and outlines the procedure for doing so

There was no way to legally leave the EU before the Treaty was signed in 2007

It gives the leaving country two years to negotiate an exit deal

Once set in motion, it cannot be stopped except by unanimous consent of all member states

Any deal must be approved by a “qualified majority” of EU member states and can be vetoed by the European Parliament

In November 2016, the High Court ruled that the Government cannot trigger Article 50 without MPs voting on the matter first. The Supreme Court upheld the ruling in January 2017

Under the Vienna Convention, the termination of a treaty “releases the parties from any obligation further to perform the treaty”.

Furthermore under EU’s own laws mean there is no “legal obligation” to cough up any cash if no deal is struck.

THERESA MAY can walk away from the EU without paying a penny of the Brussels’ £50-£60 billion divorce bill.

The EU will lose more than just economic and political strength — it will also see billions of euros disappear from its budget. Net revenues that flow into the EU from Britain each year range from 14 to 21 billion euros. If you subtract the money Britain gets back from Brussels, the EU budget would shrink by up to 10 billion euros per year.

Of course, there is a lot of money at stake.

HOWEVER THERE IS ONE THING THAT IS FOR SURE.

THE EU MOST INSURE THAT IF THE UK LEAVES OR NOT, ENGLAND MUST FOOT ALL THE BILLS THAT ARE DIRECTLY INVOLVED WITH THE PENDING NEGOTIATIONS.

AFTER ALL: NONE OF THE COST INVOLVED ARE A RESULT OF ACTIONS TAKEN BY THE EU.

Not to demand so would be act of calamitous self-harm.

Ongoing spending commitments -Being without legal precedent, there is no simple answer to whether the EU Treaty, to which all members are signatories, or the secondary legislation arising from it, would apply to a state that is leaving.

Legally, the UK’s obligation to these payments or others is unclear.

IN THE MEANTIME IT IS THE DUTY OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT TO PROTECT THE INTERESTS OF THE CITIZENS OF THE EU.

We all know that the EU is in need of radical change.

ONCE MRS MAY ENACTS ARTICLE 50 BEFORE ANY NEGOTIATIONS OR TRANSITION DEAL THE EU MUST PUT IN PLACE A TOTALLY TRANSPARENT COSTING AND REMUNERATION PACKET.

Agreement on this WILL be needed before talks over trade deal negotiations begin.

The member states will be forced to negotiate the bloc’s finances at the same time they begin Brexit negotiations. But how will Brussels be able to determine its budget without knowing how much the British government will be paying into it?

Britain needs to define its position concerning the direct costs before any kind of future relationship the British will seek with the EU.

That, though, will determine the price of future ties NOT THE COSTS OF SEPARATION.

The main thing, in my opinion, is that Brexit is an opportunity to reform the Union in a way which will make it more effective and stop countries wanting to break away.

On March 25, 2017, European leaders will mark the sixtieth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, the EU’s founding document. It will be a fraught celebration.

The EU Treaties would also need to be amended to reflect the UK’s departure. In effect, this means that the final deal at the end of a negotiated UK exit from the EU would need to be ratified by EU leaders via a qualified majority vote, a majority in the European Parliament and by the remaining 27 national parliaments across the EU.

Let me from the off state that I am no Scientist, so don’t expect this post to make much sense, what you read here comes from the following unanswerable questions.

1.Why did the big bang happen?
2. Why does something called energy, space and time exist in the first place?
3. Why do bodies follow a gravitational law that is proportional to their masses and not the square of their masses????
4. Why does the zero point energy exist in Quantum systems even at Zero Kelvin, when all is supposed to be static at rest (zero energy)?

None of which I am going to attempt to answer.

It’s sufficient to say that everything you see around you, from your own body to the planet you’re standing on and the stars in the sky, are made of atoms but no one has ever really seen an atom.

As you know, An atom has 3 subatomic particles called electrons, protons, and neutrons. The exception to this rule is the hydrogen atom which only has 1 proton and 1 electron.

What I am interested in is where in the first place did they come from.

We have seen so much evidence of their existence that most of us believe in them.

It is estimated that the there are between 1078 to 1082 atoms in the known, observable universe.

In layman’s terms, that works out to between ten quadrillion vigintillion and one-hundred thousand quadrillion vigintillion atoms. This estimate accounts only for the observable universe which reaches 46 billion light years in any direction, and is based on where the expansion of space has taken the most distant objects observed.

It appears that they were not formed during the initial development of our universe (sometimes called the big bang) but were formed afterwards in large stars by synthesising more complex atoms.

Stars evolved after the Big Bang.

Density fluctuations left over from the big bang could have evolved into the first stars. These stars altered the dynamics of the cosmos by heating and ionizing the surrounding gases. The earliest stars also produced and dispersed the first heavy elements, paving the way for the eventual formation of solar systems like our own.

The big bang also produced hydrogen and helium, but most of the heavier elements are created only by the thermonuclear fusion reactions in stars, so they would not have been present before the first stars had formed.

What this means for the atom is anyone guess other than before the big bang there we no atoms.

If they were not around, what were large stars made of?

Were they just collection of energy released by the Big Bang?

If so.

What was holding the energy together to form stars that are estimated to have been between 100 and 250 times as massive as the sun.

According to Hernquist Dark matter provided the first gravitational impetus for hydrogen and helium gas to start clumping together. The gas began releasing energy as it condensed, forming molecules from atoms, which further cooled the clump and allowed for even greater condensing.

So is it dark matter (Dark Matter the putative elementary particles that are believed to make up about 90 percent of the universe’s mass) or gravity or the small-scale density fluctuations—clumps in the primordial soup that created the atom.

But it seems to me if there were no atoms in the first place none of the above appears possible.

It might seem that star formation is a problem that has been solved.

But nothing could be further from the truth. We don’t really know how the very first stars were actually formed. We need to go back to the drawing board because our present understanding of this subject is still primitive.

Jason Silva who likes to articulate the theory that everyone and everything on earth contains minuscule star particles. In other words we are made of star stuff, atoms from the stars, is pie in the sky.

Cosmic dust forged inside stars turned into interstellar dust — dust formed by the deaths of an earlier generation of stars a key building block in the formation of stars, planets and complex molecules; but in the early Universe — before the first generations of stars died out — it was scarce.

Neutral Atoms did not come from the stars, stars came from electrically charged atoms.

The chemical and physical properties of an atom change as ions are created. When two ions with opposite charges come into contact, they are attracted to each other. They may begin to share electrons in either covalent or electrovalent bonds.

Here is a picture of exploding star.

Credit: NASA/ESA/HEIC/Hubble Heritage Team.

So, all life on Earth and the atoms in our bodies were created in the furnace of now-long-dead stars.

Is this true? It seem to me to be very dubious.

Pretty much everything we know about atoms is indirect evidence.

The physics which works here is the same physics which works elsewhere. If this were not the case, physics would somehow be a local phenomenon, which simply seems wrong. It is not true that everything in Solar system is build of atoms.

Light is not made up of atoms.

We’re probably looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place as there’s no point of reference in our universe.

Atoms are themselves made of subatomic particles which in turn are made of sub-sub-atomic particles. In fact no scientist worth its salt can claim that we and everything in the universe made up of Atoms.

There is no experimental confirmation about structure of universe.

Who told us everything was made up of atoms?

Democritus came up with the idea that something could be cut into its smallest piece and it would still be the same object. He was also the first person to write the word atom down. He came up with an idea, but it took 2,400 years before anyone figured out that he was right!

Or did they?

Current hypotheses suggest that four-fifths of the universe’s mass consists of a mysterious material that scientists can’t observe directly, which researchers call dark matter. The substance makes itself known by the way galaxies rotate and bend light around them, suggesting those celestial structures have more mass than observers can see.

We don’t yet know what dark matter is.

The Universe is enormous and our planet is but a small, pale blue dot that makes up a fraction of the matter in our Universe. The rest is something else, a material that nobody on Earth has ever seen.

Fritz Zwicky came up with the term “dark” matter.” He was some crazy theorist who couldn’t get his forces to add up, and so invented an entire new form of matter.

Astronomers now believe that dark matter has been fundamental in creating the Universe as we know it. There is a lot of it: about 25% of the Universe. Billions of dark matter particles pass through us every second.

Atoms are the smallest pieces of matter; they are made of particles (protons and electrons). When atoms are grouped together, these groups are called molecules.

While atoms are the tiniest bits of matter, they are made of the sub-atomic building blocks of matter—protons and electrons—revolving around a nucleus. The “atomic number” of an element, as seen on a periodic chart, refers to the number of protons contained in one atom of that element.

Confusingly, it’s sometimes said that dark matter makes up about 80% of all the matter in the Universe. That’s because only 30% of the Universe is made up of matter, and most of it is dark matter. The rest is energy. Dark matter is the skeleton on which ordinary matter hangs. Billions of dark matter particles pass through us every second.

We only know about a small fraction of the matter in the Universe. The rest is a mysterious substance known only as dark matter.

Now the most popular suggestion is that dark matter is made of a new kind of particle, predicted by theory but never detected. They are called WIMPs: Weakly Interacting Massive Particles. When these particles hit anything they pass straight through.

WIMPs have a lot of mass, although they are not necessarily large.

“WIMP” is just a catchphrase, and could include many different types of particles.

Below is a picture of Dark matter. (Credit: Yannick Mellier/IAP/SPL)

Where is it?

At this point you may be throwing your arms up in frustration. “First they decided there’s all this invisible matter, now they’ve decided it’s made of some new kind of stuff that they can’t detect!

Dark matter doesn’t exist at all. We’re back where we were.

The challenge is to find dark matter when we don’t know what we’re looking for.

Instead, the laws of gravity as we know them must be wrong, and that’s why galaxies behave so oddly. This idea is called MOND, short for “Modified Newtonian Dynamics”.

The problem, says Massey, is that the MOND supporters have not come up with a viable alternative to dark matter: their ideas can’t explain the data.

Dark matter particles usually pass through normal matter. But the sheer number of them means that, very occasionally, some will collide with the nucleus of an atom.

Here is one (Credit: NASA Goddard/A. Mellinger, CMU/T. Linden, University of Chicago)

In 2014, using data from NASA’s powerful Fermi telescope,researchers claimed to have detected the gamma rays from these collisions. They found an area of our Milky Way galaxy that seems to be glowing with gamma rays, possibly from dark matter. But the jury is still out on whether the gamma rays are really from dark matter. They could also have come from energetic stars called pulsars, or from collapsing stars.

As well as colliding with normal matter, dark matter might occasionally bump into itself, and there’s a way to see that too.

Although we can’t see it directly, dark matter does do one thing to give itself away.

It bends the light that passes through it.

Is there two types of dark matter one interacting with other?

So a second way of detecting dark matter would be to create it first. Physicists hope to do just that using particle colliders, like the Large Hadron Collide in Geneva, Switzerland.

If the LHC does create some dark matter, it would not actually register on its detectors.

If WIMPs do make up the dark matter and they discover them at the LHC then we are in with a good chance of working out what the dark matter in the Universe is composed of.

How much of an atom is empty space? Very nearly all of it.

The space inside the atom is just that, empty space, i.e. vacuum.

Vacuum, by definition, is the absence of matter. Matter, of course, is something that has mass and occupies space, it’s really a space with very little matter in it.

Many modern devices (like the integrated circuit chips that make everything from cars to computers work), have to be fabricated in a vacuum.

Even outer space, which is considered a vacuum and has less matter in it than anything mankind can reproduce, still has some atoms bouncing around.

When two atoms approach each other, their electron shells push back at each other, despite the fact that each atom’s net charge is 0. This is a very useful feature of nature. It makes our lives a lot easier.

When you sit on a chair, you are not really touching it. You see, every atom is surrounded by a shell of electrons.

If atoms push away from each other, why doesn’t the entire universe just blow away from itself? The answer is that some, actually most atoms’ electron shells are not full.

Electrons really do go back and forth between atoms and they do so pretty fast.

Electrons tend to be kind of mobile, which is also a very nice feature of nature, since without it your walkman would not work. Once both atoms’ outer shells are full due to this electron sharing, they go back to their usual repulsive behavior.

This, by the way, is how we get molecules and the secret to understanding Chemistry. It’s all about the electrons!. It describe the nature of atoms.

We are much more than what we perceive ourselves to be, and it’s time we begin to see ourselves in that light.

The atom has no physical structure, we have no physical structure, physical things really don’t have any physical structure! Atoms are made out of invisible energy, not tangible matter.

It’s quite the conundrum, isn’t it?

Not really, when you enter the world of Quantum it’s totally bonkers.

With quantum physics.

One of these potential revelations is that “the observer creates the reality.”

As observers, we are personally involved with the creation of our own reality.

We are all energy, radiating our own unique energy signature.

Feelings, thoughts and emotions play a vital role, quantum physics helps us see the significance of how we all feel. If all of us are in a peaceful loving state inside, it will no doubt impact the external world around us, and influence how others feel as well.

At our subatomic level, does the vibrational frequency change the manifestation of physical reality? If so, in what way?

We know that when an atom changes its state, it absorbs or emits electromagnetic frequencies, which are responsible for changing its state.

Do different states of emotion, perception and feelings result in different electromagnetic frequencies? Yes! This has been proven.

If we are made of atoms, then a scientist studying atoms is actually a group of atoms studying themselves.

The relationship between physical things and mental/spiritual ones is a huge one in philosophy.

Anyone who wants to invent a new theory of gravity has to go one better than Einstein and explain everything he was able to explain, and also account for the dark matter.

Yes, cosmology is really weird.

Some day humanity might have sufficient knowledge and tools to truly understand the origin of the universe, but currently we’re only a tiny baby step closer than when “Let there be light” was written.

Philosophically, no matter what you want to believe about the beginning of things, you need to get comfortable with the idea of infinity. Either infinite time, or an infinite deity that exists outside of time; really, both accomplish the same thing by explaining how things exist, and neither can be proven or disproven.

All we know is that there is something infinite going on and if energy couldn’t have been created, then there were no Universe in the first place.

Most of our Universe is still a black box, its secrets waiting to be unlocked.

How a dark, featureless universe formed the brilliant panoply of objects that now give us light and life remains very much a mystery.

Does it matter that there are things in this universe humans are not meant to understand.